


When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all

by wildlilies



Series: Tumblr Prompts [2]
Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-06-13
Packaged: 2017-12-14 20:29:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/841059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildlilies/pseuds/wildlilies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr Prompt: Jenna phones Matt asking if he has seen Alex because she never showed up at Jenna's for their girl’s night. She stays on the phone as she goes to check Alex's apartment. Matt suddenly hears Jenna screaming in fear and the line goes dead, he races to Alex's place just as she is being loaded into an ambulance with her wrists bandaged. Matt is left comforting Jenna and getting the both of them to the hospital. He then helps Alex through her pain.</p><p>Prompt by throughthelookingglass-amelia.tumblr.com</p>
            </blockquote>





	When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all

Matt whistled as he grabbed a box of pasta from the shelf, tossed it into his cart and marked the item off of his list. It was Friday night and he had nothing to do, no plans, so he’d decided to get ahead on his tasks for the weekend. The first one on his list was grocery shopping; his kitchen was woefully empty at the moment. As he turned the cart down the next aisle, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. Almost dropping his shopping list, he fumbled until he had his phone pressed to his ear.

“Yeah, hello?”

“Hey, Matt! Sorry, I didn’t want to bother you on a Friday night, but I thought you might be able to help me.”

“Oh, hi Jenna. No, no you’re fine; I’m just doing a bit of shopping. What’s up?”

“It’s not a big deal, really… It’s just that Alex and I were supposed to have a girl’s night tonight. You know, open a bottle of wine, watch a movie, gossip. Only she was supposed to show up a half hour ago, and she hasn’t yet. Do you know where she might be?”

Matt absentmindedly grabbed a bag of crisps as he listened. “I’m not sure. You know, she has been looking tired lately. She hasn’t been getting much sleep apparently, that’s what she told me. She might have just fallen asleep after work. Why don’t you go down and check her flat?”

“Duh, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself. You are quite the genius, Smith.” In the background he heard her stand and leave her own flat.

He grinned “Well, yeah, I am.” 

He could practically feel Jenna roll her eyes at him through the phone. “Alright, don’t get a big head now. Well, bigger…” she muttered.

“Oi! Rude!”

Jenna giggled and then her voice was distant. Matt heard her knock on what he assumed was Alex’s front door. “Alex? Hey, Alex, you in there?”

Matt half-listened as he continued with his shopping. Then he heard Jenna’s voice again. 

“Huh. No answer. But - ” He heard a click. “Door’s unlocked. Weird.”

He listened to Jenna walk into Alex’s apartment, calling her name a few more times. Suddenly, he heard her give an awful scream, and fear immediately flooded his insides.

“Jenna? Jenna, what’s going on?”

He heard Jenna scream Alex’s name and then the line went dead. Horrified, he stared at his phone for a moment, unsure of what was happening. Then he burst into action, dropping his shopping list, abandoning his cart and sprinting out the door. He blinked at the darkness, disoriented for a moment, and then found his bearings before sprinting off again. 

Matt kept a steady but fast pace. The store was half a mile away from their block of flats, and he didn’t want to tire himself out before he got there. He whipped his head around as he heard an ambulance speed by on the road, sirens wailing. His stomach dropped – that couldn’t be going to their flats – and he picked up his pace.

He skidded into the parking lot, and sure enough, the ambulance was parked haphazardly by the stairwell. He hurried over and took the stairs two at a time, stopping outside Alex’s apartment just as a team of paramedics backed out the door rolling a stretcher with a familiar body on it.

“Alex,” he breathed out, and took a step to be closer to her. One of the paramedics gently restrained him however, and held him back so they could pass. As she was wheeled by, he could see bandages on her wrists and tear tracks on her unusually pale face. Her eyes were closed and she seemed unresponsive, giving him more reason for concern. 

He felt sick to his stomach. What could possibly have happened to this wonderful, beautiful woman? 

When they got to the staircase, the paramedic restraining Matt went to help maneuver the stretcher down the stairs. Matt started to follow, but was stopped when he heard a sob coming from Alex’s doorway. Knowing Alex was in good hands, he turned and stepped into her flat. He was greeted with the sight of Jenna standing off to the side crying, nodding as a police officer talked to her. When she caught sight of Matt, she immediately let out another sob and rushed over to him.

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly as she cried into his shirt. The police officer quietly ducked out as Matt tried to comfort Jenna.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay, what happened?”

“S-she was just lying there, there was blood all over her wrists, and I -”

“Okay, it’s okay. Come on, we’ll follow them to the hospital, yeah? I’ll drive, come on.”

The drive to the hospital was quiet, the silence punctuated only by Jenna’s sniffles and the radio playing softly. Matt spent the whole way trying to wrap his head around what had happened. Based on what he’d seen and heard from Jenna, it seemed that Alex’s wrists were the problem. But how the hell had she hurt her wrists enough to make them bleed like that? Unless she’d done it to herself on purpose?

 _No._ Matt quickly pushed that thought away. He couldn’t bear to think of Alex, his beautiful Alex hurting herself purposely. _My Alex?_ Since when had he started thinking of her as his? She wasn’t his, and probably never would be. The last he’d heard she’d been dating some bloke for a few months, and it had seemed to be going well. 

But it wasn’t like that had stopped him from wanting her to be his. It seemed the more Matt heard about that Jason guy the more he wished that she was going on and on about him instead. But she seemed happy with Jason, and Matt would never do anything to take away her happiness. 

When they finally arrived at the hospital, they spent what seemed like hours trying to fight the confusion of the emergency room and figure out where Alex was. They were eventually directed towards a room where a nurse was checking the vitals of an unconscious Alex. She turned to them as they entered, giving them a small smile and stepped back, allowing them to move closer.

“Her injuries weren’t severe, but she lost enough blood to pass out. It appears that her injuries were self-inflicted, perhaps in an attempt to commit suicide, so we’re going to need to keep her overnight just to make sure she doesn’t try to hurt herself again.”

With that the nurse left, leaving Jenna to collapse in a chair and Matt to stare horrified at Alex’s limp body. _Suicide?_ No, no. She was happy, she’d been happy – right? He racked his brains to think of any moments lately when she’d seemed upset, but none came to mind. They still spent time together on set like always, sometimes getting late dinners if filming ran late. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so what had changed?

He let out a breath and sank down next to Jenna. “Jenna, you should probably go home.”

Jenna glanced up sharply, eyes watery. “What do you mean? Why?”

“Because we don’t know when she’s going to wake up. You don’t have to be here, I’ll stay until she can be released.” He dug around in his pocket. “Here, you can drive my car home. Go home and get a good night’s sleep, I’ll call you with any updates.”

She took the keys from Matt and stood up shakily. “Are you sure? I don’t mind staying.”

Matt shook his head and stood as well. “Nah, really. I have- I need to stay. But really, you don’t need to spend your night here.”

Jenna looked at him for a moment and then nodded. “Alright. But call me if anything changes, or if you need anything.”

Matt nodded and hugged her once more, and then she was gone. He glanced around the room and grabbed a stool from the corner. Dragging it over to the bed, he settled down with the plan to watch over Alex until she woke up.

That plan lasted all of an hour and a half before he fell asleep against the hospital bed. A few hours later, he was welcomed back to reality by fingers softly running through his hair. He hummed contentedly before realizing who the fingers belonged to. He sat up quickly, dislodging the hand from his head, and blinked, disoriented. “Kingston?”

As she came into focus Matt could see her tiredly attempting to smile at him. He reached over to tenderly brush a curl from her forehead and it was like a dam broke. She burst into tears, and he immediately pulled her into his arms, tucking her under his chin. 

“Shh, Alex. It’s okay, love, I’ve got you.”

He could hear her whispering something into his shirt, but he couldn’t quite make out what she was saying. He strained to listen, only to find that she was repeating “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again. His heart broke for her, and he pulled back slightly to get her to look him in the eyes. 

“Hey. You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for, you hear? Nothing. And you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to; I’m here for you no matter what.”

Alex nodded slightly and pulled away, taking one of his hands in both of hers and holding on tightly. They stayed that way for several minutes. Finally, after taking a deep, shuddering breath, she spoke.

“It was an accident.”

Matt furrowed his brow in confusion but said nothing, knowing she’d continue if she wanted to.

“I- well, Jason broke up with me. This morning. I was fine all day, and then I just – I was upset when I got home, so I decided to have a glass of wine before I went over to Jenna’s. But when I was getting a glass from the cupboard, it slipped and I dropped it. It shattered on the counter, and somehow a small piece cut my arm.

“I didn’t- I wasn’t planning on hurting myself, I just… Jason broke up with me because he could tell that I didn’t love him, that I loved– love someone else. And he was right, of course, but it hurt because it’ll never work out, I’m not good enough for him. I thought Jason was my last shot at a relationship and there I’d gone and buggered it up. 

“So when the glass cut my arm on accident, I was just going to clean it up. But the sadness I was feeling made me remember how hurting myself had helped back when Ralph left. So I just picked up a shard of glass and… got carried away.”

Alex glanced up from their entwined hands and was shocked to see tears streaming down Matt’s face. Tentatively she reached out to brush them from his cheeks. At her touch he reacted, grabbing her hand and pulling her back into his embrace. He buried his head in the crook of her neck and clung to her tightly. She stroked his back soothingly as he calmed down. When he did, he pulled back, cupping her face in his hands. 

“Alex – don’t ever, ever think that you aren’t good enough. Please, love, anyone would be so damn lucky to be with you.” At her quiet disbelieving laugh, he shook his head. “I’m serious, Alex.”

She muttered something so quietly that he thought he’d imagined her mouth moving. Matt leaned in closer. “What was that?”

Alex looked him in the eye and seemed to come to a decision. “Even you?”

Matt gaped at her. Was he the one she thought it would never work out with? She didn’t think she was good enough for him? How could she possibly think that? She was perfect in every way, perfect for him, and by God he wanted to be with her. _Wait – didn’t she say she was in love with him? So would that be me?_ His heart swelled at the thought, and he hoped with everything he had that that was what she meant.

He stroked his thumbs along the sides of her face and when she parted her lips slightly he made a decision. Probably a dumb one, but for him it was now or never. Slowly, Matt leaned in and closed the gap between them, pressing his lips gently to hers. She sagged against him in what seemed like relief and kissed him back willingly, her hands reaching out to grip his t-shirt. Keeping the kiss chaste, he pulled back after a few moments, pressing a kiss to her forehead before pulling her close once more. 

“Especially me, Kingston.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" by Simon and Garfunkle


End file.
